Jul01

Posted By : Greg Persky, Director of Carrier Services

“Why Is Our Company Internet So Slow?”
Five Ways To Speed Up Company Internet.

If you read my last blog, “Why is our Company Internet so slow?” then you saw that I identified 5 areas that bog down internet connection speed. This entry will explore ways to combat those common factors that slow down the Internet:

1) CONTENT ACCESSDoes my organization do anything to limit content or do the users have free reign to go wherever they want on the Internet?
Most businesses use a firewall for public access security for their network. But very few of those companies deploy an important feature called content and web filtering and, as a result, might wonder why they are experiencing slow internet as well as less overall productivity from their staff. Content filtering is an option on most firewalls and it can both limit and permit access to select websites. This feature can be implemented in a manner where the organization is still sensitive to the websites the associates require while limiting access to the ones that slow down the network and don’t serve a business purpose. Additionally, content filtering can be programmed to be implemented very specifically to limit access only to the sites that a company wants to limit or block.

2) APPLICATIONSWhat applications are using up our download and upload Internet Capacity?
Awareness of an application and its impact to the business and internet bandwidth is a helpful first step. Many line of business software applications are required to be used by multiple users and companies don’t want to limit the access to those applications. However, there are some applications or practices that have a significant impact on internet performance that may not be necessary to use especially at a critical time during the business day. For example, some companies have not thought through the running time of their file backups and large file transfers and what impact that might have on overall access and productivity. Having a strategy and policy around the timing of these bandwidth consuming activities is an important business practice

3) 3) MULTIPLE USERS OF A SINGLE CONNECTIONHave you educated your end users?
When multiple people in a company use a single business internet connection, more workstations and applications consume the finite bandwidth of the connection and each device gets less of the available bandwidth. Users typically are not thinking about the impact of the overall organization all using the internet simultaneously.
As an example, associates of a company need to be aware that how they use the internet at home, and what bandwidth is available to a home user versus a business user is vastly different. Communicate to staff that business internet is much more expensive and, in most cases, there is less bandwidth to go around then the single or few users that are accessing relatively high speed low cost connections at home. The Commercial internet is also limited as far as the amount of affordable high bandwidth options at a given business address and it is not as easy to scale up as it is with most home connections.

4) BACKGROUND INTERNET USAGEDoes my organization have a limit on the number of sessions allowed at once?
Sites like Pandora, Spotify, Facebook are not only using bandwidth but are silently and constantly communicating with advertisers and are taxing the company firewalls capabilities which has limitations as to how many “sessions” or instances of communications it can sustain. Often just communicating to associates that having multiple applications open on their workstation or other device is negatively impacting the organization will help. Educate staff that having an application left open (like they might just do at home without any impact) adds to this congestion and many times the user is not even conscious that this is bogging down the network by not closing out applications that are running but not in use.

5) WIRELESS ACCESS FOR EMPLOYEES AND GUESTSIs my organization’s free WiFi for guest actually costing us?
Companies are becoming much more aware of the implications of a security breach and the instances are happening at an alarming rate of frequency. Wireless Access for employees and guests has to be managed and controlled with a mandated password changing policy that is administered and managed. Lack of control in handling this access can be potentially disastrous to a business if they are hit with a breach of client financial data. The securing and overall mobile device management (referred to as MDM) is critical with the continued expansion of inexpensive and convenient wireless devices. If this is an area of concern please contact your inhouseIT Account Manager to arrange a consultation on how to create policies and practices around wireless access and security..

In summary, there are multiple variables impacting the quality of connection and speed for internet access for an organization. If you feel any of the above issues are a possibility, contact the inhouseIT Carrier Services on our Free Analysis page to discuss how we can potentially help you better optimize your Internet and data throughout your organization.